From RossM: 28mm Spanish Caetrati (20 points)

Another post from Brushes and Bases and this time it is the start of a range of figures that are multi-purpose in Ancient Mediterranean warfare, Ancient Spanish and Iberians.  

The first stands for these versatile troops are two bases of Caetrati which will be used in both Carthaginian and Caesarean Roman armies for both ADLG and DBA. The figures are from Gripping Beast's Punic Wars range and have gathered dust for far too long in the lead mountain. 

Painted using block, shade wash and then highlighting with the base tone which is quicker than layering with three tones although not as effective. When using the Rule of Three Feet they look very good and mean that two armies will be useable for gaming much sooner than thought. 

To follow these will be more infantry and then on to both light and medium cavalry.

Probably should swap the shields on the front base over so the colours are in a different order than that of the second base, however that is a task for another day. 

In terms of points these are worth:

4 x 28mm infantry - 20 points

The running total so far is now:

128 points out of 500 or 25.6%, still a way to go to the finish line. 

Hope you found this interesting

Stay safe and cheers!

By ClarenceH: A Tiny Horde

The first two units of Beja are finished for my Mahdist army!

I'm a little disappointed that I only finished two, but it took me a few evenings to build the others (another unit of spears, a unit of rifles, and camels) and I found I was out of Wraithbone primer. Being the apocalypse and all, my FLGS didn't have any so I was forced to turn to Amazon and lost out on two or three days of painting. Happily, the cans arrived this morning and I should have two more units by next weekend.

These really need some decoration on their robes scattered through at least some of the models, but I'll continue to press on for now. They still look pretty cool in a mob!

I still have enough plastic (beyond the units listed above) to build two more units of spearmen and I think I'm going to build them as Kordofani (Nile Arab) warriors, so they'll have little hats and turbans as opposed to the magnificent afros of the Beja and a different skin tone (on which I am still undecided). I'm going to mix in a few more robe colors on those as well to break up the wave of white and cream. I've seen paintings with brown, grey, and even pale blue.

Since I haven't been able to paint as much this week, I've been musing over rules. The project has been designed for The Sword and the Flame, but there are a few things I'm not overly keen on.

The first of these is the close combat system. It seems clunky and the opinion is shared by many around the web (and there are many fans of TSATF that thinks it works just fine). I'm going to withhold judgement on this until I actually get in a few games, but I would prefer to see mechanics that more closely resemble shooting. It's probably an easy fix if I decide to fiddle with it, but the game has stood the test of time so I'll try it as written to begin with.

The second thing that bugs me a little are tracking the wounded. The British need to carry theirs with them when they move and the natives become something akin to landmines in that they can attack an enemy who wanders too close. Again, this feature has opinions split. I LIKE the idea and the character this brings to the battlefield, but I'm not a fan of tipping my models over on their sides and leaving them littering the battlefield.

My initial plan is to make a casualty marker for each British unit - a wounded model with space to set a d6 to track the number of wounded. I think if the number ever goes over 6 wounded (killed models are removed and wounded may be killed as well) the unit is probably in dire trouble and in retreat. The first damn impediment to this plan is that the Perry's didn't make an Highlander casualties meaning I will have to convert them (grumble, grumble). We'll see how my sculpting skills are coming. There are no wounded Egyptians or Sudanese either, but I can probably carve up a command model to make one.

For the natives, I'll make casualty markers as well, but they will only drop half or a third as many (I'll work this out when I get to play some games) landmines as the standard rules. I may just do away with wounded natives all together.

There are tons of rule sets available for the period and I have many of them - Black Powder, The Men Who Would Be King, A Good Dusting, Up the Nile, Donnybrook... all have points to recommend and all are lacking something I want when I read through them. One of the great things of having chosen TSATF to model my armies is that ALL of these sets are playable, more or less, with the collection I'm amassing.

Ah, well - first world problems... More Mahdists soon!

From TimG - Goliath!

I picked up this set a few months ago as I had a (vague and as yet unrealised) idea for a game. As the photos suggest, the box contains the makings of three figures and two Goliaths, making it a pretty handsome buy for under £10. 

From NoelW: Three more unconnected offerings

I recently discovered Little Wars on Youtube. I’d heard about them before, of course, but never checked them out. So I was very pleasantly surprised by what I found, and binge-watched every battle in no time short. There are some great games in their videos and, if you don’t know them, I’d highly recommend them for a good combination of history and gaming, made entertaining by what appear to be some great personalities, and backed up by useful rules reviews and more general pieces on terrain-making etc. I don’t have any real criticisms, except I’d like to see many more, and especially more games that were in 15mm or 28mm.

It was also interesting to see Miles in all his glory, pulling off some tactical masterstrokes – at least, I’m sure that’s what he’d call them. I was also slightly surprised to find myself in one of them – I was an umpire in The Great Game, the massive Waterloo game at Glasgow University last year, reported in one of the Little Wars videos, so it shouldn’t have been a shock to find my ugly mug among the clips.

Anyway, one of the best of the Little Wars’ games is D-Day, using 6mm figs and  Sam Mustafa’s strategic game, Rommel. As the anniversary is approaching, I found it such an interesting game (and, in fact, well managed – according to the video, anyway!) that I thought I’d review our neglected 15mm WW2 collection and see what might be done on similar (but very cut down) lines.

My sons and I have a rather disorganised Flames of War collection, mainly from the early versions of the game. I was hoping we might have enough figures to stage the whole of D Day but that's probably rather too ambitious. It would also have to be a multi-table, and maybe even multi-room affair, it I was to pull it off. Although I’m lucky enough to have a dedicated wargames room, its angular shape and associated beams mean it can only accommodate two 6'x4’ tables, set at right angles and with a gap between them – though they can be bridged, if you’re prepared to crawl underneath. Not enough space for the required 7 15mm games, I think.

So, more likely I’ll settle for two of the beaches – one US, one Commonwealth – and one of the para drops. What I’m really missing for a D-Day scenario, though, is landing craft. A quick internet survey showed (a) that there aren’t many in 15mm available to buy and (b) it would probably be an expensive investment in any case. So I knocked together half a dozen very simple scratch-built models from card, based on the design of one I already owned from a forgotten second hand purchase. They’re very simple, functional models, but it only took a few hours to put them together, they'll certainly do the job and I’m happy with the results. Here they are heading for what looks like certain disaster:

The rest of my week has been spent finishing off figures I began much earlier in the lockdown. Firstly 15 Italians for my friend’s WW2 North Africa armies.

And secondly 18 Perry plastic Brits intended for the North West frontier. They’ll probably do service there, but I expect them to spend more time in the Sudan, despite wearing puttees.

Imaginary scoring for this lot: although the landing craft are notionally worth 60 points, they are such simple models that I’m only going to count them as half that. Plus 33 x 28mm foot at 165 points, making 195 points in total.

Together this brings me to a working total of 924 points of which, for the side challenge with Stuart I’ve a current total of a respectable 500 points.

Even so, against my original plan, I’m slipping further and further behind and time is running out:

Project	New Task	‘Points’	Old Task	‘Points’
Agincourt
AWI	Farmstead	3
Black Seas (1/700th)	2 merchants	20
British in Egypt: 1801			Generals de Rolls’ regiment	30 60
Cape Wars	12 infantry	60
Carthaginians
Crusades	Command group	20
ECW
French in Egypt: 1801	Guns	50	Command Gun crew	75
Frostgrave/fantasy	3 Treemen	24	Frankie	5
Italian Wars
Lord of the Rings
Minden (15mm)
Ottoman
Peninsular War			12 Spanish	60
Republican Romans
Sikh/Afghan Wars	Command stand 8 Irregulars	15 40
1860s British IF			Union rebasing	0
1880s, the Sudan	Buildings	15	18 British	90
Walmington/Sealion etc	6 landing craft	30	3 Civvies 6 zombies Bandstand	15 30 2
Waterloo
WW2 Desert	3 trucks	30	15 Italians	65
Zulu War	NNI Frontier Horse Natal Carbineers	30 60 50	Pearson & Chelmsford 4 foot	25 20
TOTAL		447		477

From SanderS: Reaching Fran's Fjord

Hoi,

Now on goes the journey on Challenge Island. The ballon has more or less safely deposited me at Fran's Fjord where 15mm figures should be painted.

Now I am beavering away through some Crimean Wars figures and had hoped to finish that project during this Challenge by completing my British forces but I found out I still had some Russian Caucassian (?) skirmishers left and decided I would paint them as well as their British opponents from the Rifle Brigade.

While I am glad these are finished the rest of the figures remains for next years Challenge.

Cheers Sander

From SanderS: "I find your lack of posts disturbing..." 185 points

Dear Fellow Challengers,

It has happened: I have missed a week's posting and as such am about to be kicked off the Challenge indeed. But before any Minions get a whiff of that I will try and put up some more figures.

As I am being penitent anyway: I should apologize to you all as well for not replying to your excellent posts, real life has thrown all kinds of spanners in the works. Especially at the school where I work since we now need to think of how we are going to grade our pupils at the end of our school-year which is in 5 weeks time from now.

More Star Wars stuff today, as you have come to expect I am sure.This is a piece of scenery I have made on my 3D printer and it is supposed to be a crashed Gozanthi Cruiser (whatever that may be). The original print file (STL)  is in Legion scale and wouldn't fit my printplate so I had to reduce the size to 40% for it to fit.

The figures included are one of my old 25mm West Wind figures (Luke) and a Rebel officer form Star Wars Legions for size.

Next up a load of Rebel Scum.The SW Legions base set contains two squads of Rebel Troopers and I painted these in two different-ish outfits recognisable by the colour of the turbans.

Some specialists in the form of (Scariff)  Pathfinders

There's a reinforcement or extension pack for the Rebel Troopers containing 4 Aliens to add to your basic squads.

And finally the Comms specialist from the specialist box that further comprises the Officer and two droids I have shown earlier.

This brings me up to 25 figures and 1 scenery piece which in total I would score at 185 points. Still on my paint desk for this commission are the Rebel Commandos (Endor troops), a Rebel laser dish (basically Hoth laser but will be painted Tatooine style) and two downed objectives (AT-ST and Shuttle with R2 and Threepio). So off to the painttable with me!